What it is:

Overthinking is:

• Reviewing what has happened today a dozen times, scanning for mistakes, before feeling ok to go to sleep

• Attempting to predict how the next day is going to go so you can plan how you will react to events that may not even occur

• Using thoughts to explain the feelings you have underneath without acknowledging the feelings, furthering the loop

• A doomed attempt to remove uncertainty, a power no one has

The Cause:

• Learning early on that safety wasn’t given to you naturally, that you had to be a certain way to get it

• Finding out safety wouldn’t be given to you if you were “high maintenance” or created problems

• Trained you to be vigilant, to get ahead of things before people got upset, and to fixate on mistakes so that you can make things better

The Cost:

• You lose time, you lose sleep, you lose health. Life is spent rereading texts or rehashing conversations instead of having fun

• Confidence is kept low. Every sign of things not working out (a normal part of life), becomes evidence that you are screwing up

• Life progress stalls as you become paralyzed from not wanting to make the wrong decision

• Relationships are damaged when we seek constant reassurance from people that things are ok

• Depression can emerge. It may be easier to push people away rather than go through the mental labor of trying to make things work

The Way Out:

• See that the ‘problem’ isn’t whatever your thoughts want to focus on, it is the basic emotions underneath that need acknowledgement

• See yourself as being able to handle the unknown. There are thousands of times where life was not what you predicted it would be. And you survived those. You can survive the next few thousand too

• Work individually or with a therapist on the practice of making concrete decisions then saying “case closed, I will not overthink further”